27 People Who Knew A Murderer On When They Noticed Something Was ‘Off’

Creepy customer

“A regular customer in my shop. He would come in after his shift to buy beer and tobacco, on one occasion he caught and helped us to evict a shoplifter. He seemed friendly enough. Then a local girl went missing and was eventually pulled out of a river a few weeks later. They announced they were looking for somebody in connection with her death and it was him. They had CCTV footage of him tailing her through a park and footage of him buying beer in a shop, still unconfirmed to this day being our shop as they blurred out the surroundings.

Anyway, as we had a TV in our shop switched to the news channel as it was a rolling story local to us, we started to discuss the guy, if we saw him on the day she went missing, that kind of thing. We hadn’t, but it was at that point when one of my staff, a young girl, who had previously said to management that she didn’t want to work the closing shift anymore because there was “too many creepy men around”, told us that he used to stare at her when he came in to the store in a way that made her uncomfortable enough to not want to be on the floor when he came in.

They never got to question him about the murder as he was found dead in a local park a few days later. He’d hung himself.” — Glitch_in_the_pink

A cannibal

“Sat next to him in choir class. He was always kind of off. He operated on his own wavelength. Constantly in his own world, never really engaging with anybody. People just didn’t really exist on his radar. On a class trip we slept in the same hotel room and he walked around naked like I wasn’t even there. I always assumed he was autistic, but in hindsight it might have been something much worse, like schizophrenia. He never seemed violent, but nobody ever talked to him enough to ever make that conclusion in the first place.

A few months ago he beat and stabbed his mother to death with a kitchen knife. It was so bad dental records were needed to identify the body. He cut off one of her breasts and implied in his confession that he ate part of it. He waited until his dad came home from work to show him what he’d done. Claimed he saw a sign from the devil that told him to kill her. (That may have been a lie. From what I heard he was very excited to tell the police what he had done. And from what I do know about him, he might have said it for the attention.) He turned himself in, waived his Miranda rights, and confessed to everything. When the cops found him he was literally soaked in blood. He refused to shower it off, so they had to hose him down before they put him in a cell. He’s looking at 40 years in prison.

His Mom was an amazing woman, she tailored our suits for choir and was constantly volunteering. If there was an event, she was there. She was gonna be her town’s councilwoman next year. She loved her son very much. She didn’t deserve to die like that.” — Alsikepike

He couldn’t stand the crying

“I went through primary and high school with a guy in the year below me who seemed a little… distant. We lived near each other and caught the bus from the same stop. He was a bit of a bully but it was something more. Like you could tell he wasn’t a bully because he was hurting inside or because he felt threatened in some way, he was a bully because he did what he wanted to do and didn’t realise that it hurt other people. Like the kind of kid who enjoyed pulling wings off flies.

Not long after I left my hometown I heard that he had been charged with the murder of a 2 year old. Apparently his girlfriend at the time left her daughter with him for an hour or so while she ran an errand. He couldn’t deal with the toddler crying anymore so he beat her. He caused severe internal bleeding and she died in hospital not long after. He would have been around 22 when he did it. He was sentenced to 36 years with a non parole period of 27 years.” — Adelineslife

If he couldn’t have her, no one could

“I moved to a new town when I was 19 and was making new friends at my new job. I met this girl at work and she invited me over to hang out with her and her best friend. I went and the best friend’s boyfriend was there and the vibes were waaay off. I was uncomfortable. He was cold, and just seemed angry for no reason. They had mentioned to me before he got there that he was always controlling and had hit the girl before.

Turns out controlling was an understatement. She came home one day and he was digging a hole in the backyard and she asked what he was doing and he replied “digging your grave.” He hit her, said if he can’t have her, nobody could have her, all of that. So eventually she left him and had to get a restraining order and everything. He somehow persuaded her to get in a car with him on her work break and they went missing for a few days. Turns out he stabbed her to death, threw her in a river and killed himself.

I met the girl only a few times and him only the once but the face that I was in such close proximity to someone capable of that gives me chills. She was so young, it was really sad.” — TopWoodpecker1062

He gave away the murder weapon

“I worked at a box store about 20 years ago, a guy I worked with was always “off,” and would give away pocket knives to other employees. One day he came in with scratches all over his face; he had raped and murdered a disabled girl the day before, using a pocket knife he had given our co-worker later that day.” — Grover_washington_jr

He asked for help

“A teenager, his mother and his step father lived around the corner from me. My mother knew them better than myself, but we all thought they were lovely.

A couple of years ago the son went to the hospital several times asking for help. He claimed he had voices telling him to kill his stepfather, but each time he went he was released and told to come back (they would give an appointment).

A few weeks later during a small argument he stabbed his stepfather to death in the front garden.

He turned himself in the next day, and wasn’t convicted as he sought help before it happened. Instead, he got the treatment he needed.” — KellyTheBroker

I never suspected a thing

“I never suspected a thing. She was the nicest woman, I even let her babysit my cousin when I had custody of him for a little while. She was my neighbor (couple houses down) and everyone loved her, she grew gigantic pumpkins, was always outside, so everyone interacted with her a lot. I moved away and a few years later and was shocked to hear everything from my family and friends who still loved in the area.

The story: She was married to a man, I knew him from my time living there too. One day, he was just gone. She was all beaten up. She said he beat her up (we always suspected this happened before this incident) and had left her because he got a woman pregnant a few towns over. We never heard from him again, but didn’t really have a reason to. She would mention every once in a while that he was still harassing her and was even beat up on another occasion after his disappearance. He was self-employed and didn’t really have any family, no one suspected anything. Three years later she was dating another man. While dating this man, the police had been investigating her for stealing money from the grocery store she worked at. They went to the boyfriends cabin, where they both were, to arrest her. She came to the door, said ok, let me go put on some clothes. The police waited at the door (I obviously wasn’t here for this part, so this is what I hear). The police then hear two gunshots. They run inside and she had poured gasoline and set the house on fire then shot her dog then herself. It took some time to get the house fire under control. Once they did, and began investigating, they found another body in the basement that didn’t die in the fire, but several days earlier. The body in the basement was her boyfriend. Then, they began investigating further, and found a blue 55 gallon drum in her backyard that contained her husband. So, she killed 2 people and her dog, and all she was suspected of was stealing from the grocery store.” — spamix0924

He tried to steal from me

“My ex-coworker was always a huge dick who nobody liked to work with. He’d always be on his phone and talking to someone, even when he had a customer waiting to order in the drive-thru. The moment I knew he had something wrong with him was when I caught him “looking for his dab pen” in one of the lockers in the backroom. He always used a top locker, but he was searching through one at the bottom, which happened to be my locker for the day. I told him that, so he just stared me in the face for a second, and walked away.

Later that same year, I learned that he shot and killed someone at a gas station.” — MikeZacharius

Dead eyes

“I was running a video game program for kids years ago, and one day an older (19) teen came in. I didn’t want to allow him in, but one of my coworkers had already said it was okay. The other kids were around 12-14 and he kept rubbing their shoulders and making them visibly uncomfortable. When I told him to stop, he just stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything. The was NOTHING in those eyes. I went home and told my boyfriend at the time that I’d met someone who would end up a rapist or murderer some day. He was dating the sister of one of the kids I worked with and maybe a month after this, ended up breaking into their apartment, killing the boy with a sword, and kidnapping the sister who had broken things off with him. The murderer’s mother ended up turning him in.” — thedwarfcockmerchant

Distracted… by murder

“The murderer I know was more of an acquaintance or casual friend – he lived down the hall from me and we hung out sometimes but not like just the two of us. Still, we’d chill at each other’s place regularly.

I passed him one day in the stairwell and I said hi. He said hi back but called me by the wrong name. He was really distracted and kind of awkward. He didn’t make eye contact and kept moving.

I remember thinking maybe we we don’t know each other as well as I thought. Later he was playing Nintendo (yep, my N64 – this was a while ago) with my roommate when I came home. He apologized and said his mind was elsewhere.

A couple days later there are cops all over the building, interviewing people and searching his place. They’d found the guy’s roommate with a bullet in the back of his head in an abandoned lot across town. The next day he confessed.” — jimmymd77

He gave me the creeps

“There was a kid i went to high school with who always gave me the creeps, we had a lot of mutual friends so we always ended up hanging out and it always made me feel really uncomfortable. Our senior year he got suspended for like a week because someone had found and turned in a hit list he had made, no one really took it too seriously. About three years after we graduated he was in the news for murdering a man in our town that he barely knew. He told the police that he held the man’s eyes open so he could watch his life leave his body.” — ThatLilChica

No joy

“I worked in a food court in my early 20s. This family would come in pretty regularly. The family stuck out because they were giants. Mom was easily 6’1″ and dad was 6’7″. They had a few kids. Nothing really stuck out at the time. They never seemed happy but never fought. They just always looked like they were just coming out of mourning.

I heard a few years back that the mom decided to leave the dad. The dad murdered the whole family and then killed himself.

Another coworker did something similar. He lived with his elderly dad. He was a super nice, but just always had this deep sadness behind his face. His gf broke up with him, his dads health went south. Everything became too much so he shot his dad and then himself. Even after hearing that, i felt bad for him. He seemed like a dude with a big heart and if he just had a day to decompress and someone to talk to, i think it would have gone a lot differently.” — rand0yes0

We were boy scouts

“I know a guy who murdered a nurse and was our towns first serial killer. He bought a “murder kit” online and stabbed her over 50 times. Let’s call him Steve.

I knew him through scouts. Now, to preface, our scout troop was pretty laid back. We didn’t tend to bother with badges and the two troop leaders were pretty cool guys. Mostly we played silly games like crab football, built catapults to fire stuff across the hall at each other etc. You get the picture.

We were a little bit a gang of misfits. But Steve was really weird. First time it came out was when he would do this thing where he’d get his butt out and dance around. At first it was like outrageous and funny, and he kept getting told to stop. When he kept doing it got a bit annoying (none of us were keen to see his bare arse…), then it got boring, then just outright weird when its not remotely funny, no one wanted him to do it and he continued.

He also used to bring in print outs of super gross porn (obviously confiscated and thrown away). Again, he was clearly trying to gross people out for his amusement.

A few times he was suspended for a week or so but give we were quite laid back and the troop leaders were good guys, they probably couldn’t bring themselves to bin him off completely.

It was a long time ago so I can’t recall all the details but I recall him being quite childish in mentality but also veeeery creepy.

When I found out i was shocked, but not surprised. Then I remembered I’d played hide and seek in the dark with this guy, in a hall with a kitchen full of knives…” — Nome3000

A bad employee

“Had an employee on my work crew, acted strange and wouldn’t listen to direction. Had goofy huge sideburns. Ended up going to jail for a short time, when he got out he shot his gf and her parents.” — Jitdoka

I should have known

“Looking back, I should have known immediately, but I didn’t even know what I was seeing.

In 2016, I was working as a server, and one of my coworkers was always complaining about her shitty husband and how they always fought. They were from Chicago, and kind of just always loud and aggressive, so I didn’t think much of it. One night, they both came in for dinner and drinks and sat in my section, and I was looking forward to finally meeting her husband so I could give him a face…I just remember not being able to look him in the eye; feeling super uncomfortable any time I needed to go over to their table, because my friend would try to spark convo—and I wanted to talk to her—but the guy’s presence just sitting there would make my skin crawl. They left that night but soon she stopped coming to work and then, a couple weeks later, news broke about the murder-suicide (husband being the murderer).

It was heartbreaking…and I no longer take lightly word of domestic disputes.” — honeyspunk

He was dumb

“I knew this kid my entire life. We were friends in elementary and middle school (more middle school.) He was your typical redneck kid but a kind person. Imagine if pinky from pinky and the brain grew up in the rural south. Well as people do in school we drifted apart. He honestly wasn’t the person in the group I was friends with he was just in that circle. So we went about out lives. A year after we graduated in the same town we all grew up in he killed his entire family. Mother, brother, stepsister, father. Just for no reason. Nothing really provoked him from my understanding. He left and went to ride atv’s with his friend later that day. They caught him and he had no memory of it. He went to court and got life and never could recount a single moment (at least he said.) It was weird seeing this kid who was to your knowledge just dumber than a bag of hammers yet a odd innocence to him, on trail for such atrocities. He just sat stone faced the entire time. Almost like he didn’t understand what had happened. Not to say I felt bad for him but I felt something, sadness perhaps.” — thewildbeej

Everyone loved him

“One of the smartest, most popular, and friendliest guys at my high school. He stood up for people who got bullied, he included everyone, he helped people who needed it all the time. Seemed like an utterly selfless guy. Literally everybody loved the guy. Two years ago killed his wife and then himself after an argument.” — [deleted]

The police didn’t care

“Not my experience, but my grandmother’s. she got pregnant at 15 by my grandfather and had to get married (1960s). he was extremely abusive and my grandmother went to the police multiple times because she felt like he would wind up killing someone, but they just didn’t take it seriously and ignored her.

He later went on to strangle and beat a 14 year old girl to death with a baseball bat just a couple years later.” — FionnaAndCake

He had anger issues

“My bio-dad ended up murdering my step-mom. Everyone in my family, my mom and two older brothers definitely knew that something was up. He had severe anger issues and was very abusive, some of the earlier memories I have are of him choking one of my brothers. He even almost choked my mom to death a couple of times. Obviously my mom was smart and divorced him as he didn’t want to see him kill my brothers.

Years later I come home from school and my mom and step-dad take us all to the side and tell us he shot our step-mom and was currently in jail. None of us were surprised. If anything I was just so grateful my mom left him.

It’s so strange that I am directly related to a murderer.” — rassion-isle

I never would have known

“Never.

He was a seemingly happy kid who brought a backpack full of (probably stolen) SNES games over to my place pretty regularly.

The last time I posted this, I said he killed another teen in a drug related turf war.

I looked up his case afterwards and it was actually two.” — mindfeces

He seemed off

“The first time I met him. “Jose” was a friend of my ex and something immediately seemed off. He was sneaky, always lying and cheating (but not good at it cause he was dumb), and a total narcissist as well. I told my ex to keep his distance, that Jose would only get him into some shit. Not only did he set my ex up to be robbed, Jose snitched on a bunch of other people, and finally snapped on stranger in a fit of road/roid rage and stabbed him. The guy he killed was fairly young and a good kid, just in the wrong place at the time. I hope that asshole rots in prison.” — Atara117

We all just went along with it

“A great uncle shot one of my great great uncles for trying to fondle (or rape) another family member.

Turns out everybody was tired of his shit, so the killing was never reported.

Nobody quite knows where the body is buried, but my guess is that he threw it into the river (we were a dictatorship at the time, so seeing bodies flushed down the river was not uncommon).” — hirisol139

I knew immediately

“Not sure if this fits here but it’s a sad story nonetheless. About 4-5 years ago my mom hired this man to remodel her kitchen because he had been recommended to her by a bunch of people. The day he shows up, he has his 11 year old daughter with him to “help out”. The second I see the both of them I think “i think he’s molesting her”. Don’t know why, have zero proof of it, just a weird feeling and his vibe totally creeped me out. Maybe because she was so young, he mentioned having another girl and a son, and she should’ve been in school. He brought her over everyday for two weeks while he did the kitchen. She was seemingly happy, and fine so I just sort of kept that in the back of my mind. Everyday I would ask my mom when he’d be done so he could get the hell out of her house because he was so creepy and I didn’t want him around us. My mom ignored it and told me she didn’t understand, because he did good work and was “really nice.”

Cut to about a year later and my mom calls me and goes “hey remember Andrew, the guy who did my kitchen?” I said “yeah, why? Did he get caught molesting his daughter?” She goes “uh…how did you know that?” Turns out he had been brutally torturing his entire family, not only molesting his children, but did stuff like tie his son to a shed outside and make him eat his own feces, all in the name of Christ. They fled from him in the middle of the night and he’s now in prison for the rest of his life.” — TopLahman

She was cool

“Honestly, this girl I went to school with killed two kids she babysat and their mother. Before that, I would have told you she was one of the calmest coolest people in our school. Would have never suspected her to do something like that.” — Nordll

Meth

“Kid I went to school with from 5th to 8th grade. He was always a dick. Typical class clown but with a mean streak. When we hit middle school he was always making comments about/to girls that were incredibly inappropriate. I never liked him and hated being around him.

He ended up getting into meth and shot his mom and dad in their sleep while high. His mom died and his dad survived but was severely injured. Last I heard he was crying crocodile tears saying he regrets everything and wants another chance. But knowing him, it’s total bullshit. He deserves to rot.” — VitriolicWyverns

I knew where his lair was

“When he came looking for me because I was the only one that knew of the abandoned mine we both found when exploring as kids. It had been years since we had talked and he suddenly showed up looking for me.

He killed his roommate because he was gay and made a pass at him. Dumped the body in the mine in Boulder County Colorado.” — carsntools

I thought he was great

“He was the sweetest, kindest, gentle giant kind of guy. Kind of a weirdo, but still a great guy overall. I remember once that he shed a tear just by talking about his kid, because he was so filled with emotion from having him in his life.

He turned out to kill his wife, kidnap his child, start the longest Amber Alert in the history of Canada, as he tried escaping to a different province he killed another man to steal his car.

I’m still unsure today if I should have seen anything at any point. It comes to haunt my nightmares from time to time.” — SpadesFairy